Hero of War
by ForeverWithLove
Summary: Harry begins to understand what it truly means to be him.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.

Author's Notes:

I have to admit, that I never meant to write this. I've been writing Partying with the Potters like crazy, but I realized pretty quickly that I need some kind of creative outlet for my morbid side, and so this was born. I'm not sure how to explain what this is, but I suppose it's a bit of a songic, though the song doesn't make sense for every part. I just thought the song was great, and so I just started writing this, as both randomness and catharsis. So, please read and review!

I lost my family in war, and I know what the truth of war is, of course I do, I of all people. That is something that became apparent to me from the first moment that I knelt here at the graves of my parents today. I've seen both the best and the worst in people. I know the terror and the cruelty of war.

War is not what people make it seem.

To our families, and to our causes, we are heroes. We are the ones that protect them and keep them safe in their beds. It's only right to honour us.

I disagree. I'd rather not be honoured for the crimes I've committed. War itself is a crime on humanity.

I have lived in a tent for days on end, with only two others for companionship, and it's hell. You have almost no food, and no hope. Our friend walked out on us, taking our morale with him. It was only on his return that we got some spirit back. Some more familial love. And for Hermione and Ron, there was romance.

So many crimes were committed against us, but we've had to do some criminal things ourselves, to protect each other.

How are we even better than them at this point? Are we not all equal when it comes down to it?

At this point, it's only her, the one I left behind, that keeps me going. Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and their familes are the only reasons that I had to even win the war. Otherwise, there was no one left for me, nobody else that I would have ever killed to protect like I did.

When I look in the mirror, I see my reflection and have to wince away.

When she touches my hands, will she know the cruel actions that they committed? Will she be able to see the tracks of the blood that figuratively flowed from my enemy after I killed him?

Will she see the truth of what I am?

I don't know how she's going to do it, but she's going to be proud of me!

Proud!

My medals of valour, and awards for my role in this bloody war will likely be displayed in a prominent place on our mantel, and I'll have to face them everyday for the rest of my life. It's obvious to me that the people who give these awards have never been to war themselves.

And they have never been the force that the war centered on.

Do they have any idea how many people have given their lives to protect me? Have they seen the bodies of the people who stepped in front of fatal curses that weren't meant for them? Have they had to tell their families that they died for a noble causes, while knowing that that "cause" was themselves?

I don't think so.

The worst part of it all is that her brother died in a war that was really meant to be between another man and me. Will she forgive me for causing him to die? Will she even be able to look at me now that this is all over?

I left her alone in a secluded castle, in a place where no one can protect her. Her friends had to watch as they hurt her, and her family was bound by the distance just as we were. She had to fend for herself, in what was supposed to be the safest place. She had to be what I was, the leader of the only type of rebellion left to her. I left her alone there, thinking that she'd be okay.

Fool!

She was hurt by the fact that I left, let alone the torture she was subjected to. I wonder if she's even okay. I wonder if she was scared, or if she had faith that I would somehow rescue her again. I wonder if I failed her.

My head hangs down in shame as I slowly get up off my knees from where I have been kneeling next to my parents' graves.

I hope she knows that I watched her, I hope she knows that I thought about her constantly. I haven't always done my best where she is concerned. My only defense is that I was blinded by love, by what Voldemort considered to be my weak side. Maybe I should have listened to Snape when he told me that my heart was my weak side.

Maybe if I had, Sirius would still be alive.

Even now, after two years, his name still hurts. But it hurts even more to think of how naive and stupid I was to believe my dream, without checking conclusively. Sad that it's me that got so many killed.

Even worse is the fact that I was the one that killed so many.

I stop and look back at their tombstones. Together, as they were, even in death. I was the reason that they died, for Voldemort would never have come that night if it hadn't been for me. Mum would never have died if she hadn't wanted to protect me. I got all the credit for Voldemort's first downfall, but it all should have been hers. And Dad, he wanted to protect us when Voldemort first entered, he went to face him without even holding a wand. He never had a chance, because of me.

Cedric died for me too, for I was the one who suggested that we both grab the cup. If Cedric hadn't, then he would still be alive. I would never have any nightmares from that graveyard aboout him.

I wouldn't have to hear Kill the spare every night.

Sirius died for me too, because it was me that he came after that night. He loved me enough to come after me, even when it could possibly cause his death.

You could say the same for all of my friends.

Remus, Tonks, Fred, and Colin, to name a few, died in a war that should have been over years before. What would they have contributed to the world if they had not died? We'll never know. If I had known about the Horcruxes earlier, then everything would be different. We would all be different people, with different challenges than the ones that have been plaguing us now.

Maybe, I would have had a chance to be a kid. Maybe, if Dumbledore had known about them years before, and then when he tried to kill me that night...

If only.

It's sorrowful, really, that I will spend the rest of my days wondering all these questions. I'll always wonder if I had changed one decision here or there, if more people would have lived. If I'd have had longer with Ginny...

Would that have made me into a different me? Is it Voldemort and our two-pronged destiny that shaped me, or is it my friends and my choices that do? I know which one I'd like to believe, but I also know better than lying to myself. I know that it was not only my destiny, but it was also the curses I cast, with hatred towards the enemy, that were so dark that before this all started they horrified me, the murder I committed, the one that split my soul more effectively than any Horcrux.

If anyone can put it back together, it will be her. She has this odd vibrancy to her that just makes her light up, and she has a strange ability to put people together. Look at what Ginny did with Neville, now people can barely recognize him and all it took was confidence. Merlin, I hope that she can do the same with me, for I'm likely one of the most broken people she's ever seen. I might even top the list. While she's not empathic, she just has this understanding of people that is almost creepy. I wonder if she'll recognize my brokenness for what it is.

I remember even now, our last peaceful days before the war truly escalated, before it truly laid its merciless finger on our feelings for one another, and tore us apart. We lay together under the tree at Hogwarts, our favourite tree, and told each other our dreams. She wanted to play Quidditch, and I was honest when I told her that the only dream I had was for the war to end.

"That's alright, Harry," she grinned at me. "There's going to be plenty of time after this bloody war for us to plan for the rest of our lives."

Those words haunted me for a long time, for I always had to wonder if there would be a rest of our lives for us. Somehow, they kept me going in their own way, for what she said to me meant that she believe in it all working out for us. I also had to wonder if there would be a forever for Ginny and I.

Especially now, after she's seen me kill.

Oh, they'll downplay it in the papers and I know that there's no way I'll be going to Azkaban or anything. She's seen me face another man, and talk to him about the fact that he won't live to see another sunrise. I offered him mercy, told him that I'd seen what he would be on the other side, she saw me ask him to stop so that he would not become that which he feared. But he wouldn't. She saw me tell him the truth, and I wonder what she thinks of me. I killed him, and saved everyone, but it was still cold-blooded murder for he never really had a chance in that final battle. I knew, from the moment he turned to face me, that I would win.

I've tried to cast the Cruciatus, and I managed to cast the Imperius. I'm scared to know if that means that I have enough hatred to kill. I would hope not, but I know on some subconscious level that I could, if it was for someone I loved. If it was to protect them.

Did killing Voldemort change me? Did it make me into a bad person, one that will eventually do exactly what Voldemort did? Did I become some emotionless monster that doesn't care about the well-being of anyone? Will I become so narcissistic that I won't be able to tell that Ginny's even in the room?

When I accidentally killed others, and made their blood coat the flagstones of Hogwarts, did that change the way I will think of Hogwarts? Will I always see my friends dying among their enemies on the grounds, blood running together until there was no difference between Muggleborns and purebloods? Death never differentiated between blood types that day.

Even now, as I stare across the yard, I can still see the curses, the blood, and the bodies of the people that died that day.

I hope that some day I will be able to go to Hogwarts to support my children, and that I will be able to see their achievement for what it is, rather than the sacrifices of my comrades. I will never forget them though, and that is the price of life for those of us who fought in that dastardly war.

I'd like to say that that was the war to end all wars, but the Muggles said that, and twenty years later they were back at it.

Years from now, all there will be from this war is books. The sacrifices of so many will not be remembered with the honour they deserve, and such is the way of history. It is a science of the past, but all there is numbers of the dead. Some day, someone with the same ideals will rise again, and the fight will be begin anew. For now though, at this moment, we have a partial peace.

I may have killed Voldemort, but we can't permanently eradicate evil from this world, so there is a good chance that my children may someday see a war, and I may yet see another. I hope to Merlin that Fate will use a kinder hand on the Potters the next time around.

Of course, if I marry and have kids then hopefully I will always be around to protect them.

I can still see a future for Ginny and I. We'll live in a gorgeous house, with a front porch with a swing, where we'll sit together and watch the kids play. Gorgeous children with red hair and green eyes, and black hair and brown eyes and combinations of the two will live there with us, and the happiness and love will be overflowing. We'll stay there until the end of our days, for we could never stand to leave the home where we raised our children, and we'll die in each others arms.

For some reason, though this is the stereotypical picture of happiness, I don't want that life. I want a life where there's those ups and downs that make it all worth the fights. You can't really have be happy if you have never known sadness, and I've had enough sadness to last a lifetime. Someday I'll marry Ginny, if she'll have me, and we'll be happier than I've ever been.  
You can win the war, but somehow it'll always be within me. My kids will never be able to sneak up on me, without being afraid I'll curse them into oblivion. My wand will always be in my pocket, and I'll always worry when they're late coming home. I'll never be able to sleep deeply, I wil always wake up at the first bit of noise.

Hopefully, Ginny will understand this and be okay with it. I suppose that she will just have to adjust to this, if we ever marry.

I look to the gate of the cemetery, and see her standing there. In her t-shirt and jeans, she looks like my own personal angel. Was God feeling merciful to me the day that she was born? I believe so.

Someday I'll be the person that she should have, but for now she'll have to be content with the person I am. I want to be the one who can support her, who can help her make all her dreams come true, but at the moment all I can think about is the ache in my heart. I know she's suffering over Fred's death, and I'm trying to be a rock for her, like she is for me.

I'm trying to be her hero.

I'd rather be her hero, than the hero of all the people that I actually am the hero of. She's the one that means the most to me, the one that makes me happiest of all. I love her as much as I can love anyone.

I'm a hero of war, and it wasn't by my choice. I never chose to go through what I did, for those choices were made for me when I was still a baby. If I could have, I would have let someone else be the hero, let them have all the responsibilities that were bestowed up me. I would have let somebody else take all the blame for all those deaths. I wouldn't have had to torture others, and to be tortured in return. I wouldn't have had to hear my friends scream, and know that I couldn't help. Instead I would have been one of the ordinary people that struggled to fight back from within the walls of Hogwarts, and that would have suited me quite fine. I never meant to leave her to go off to be the hero, but she always understood.

I never invited her here, I meant to come here to deal with my ghosts alone. But there she is, outside of the gate, smiling in at me. I can remember hearing her talk with some of the locals during my reflections. I'm happy that she came, but I did want to be alone so it's great that she understood my feelings and stayed out of the graveyard. Any other girl would have come up and tried to hold me. But Ginny's not any other girl, and she sees that I need my space.

I would have died for her, and for any of my friends.

I look at her and she catches hold of my gaze. I love the way she looks at me, her heart in her brown eyes. Maybe, just maybe, she'll be the one that can help me for the first time. I wish I had found Ginny earlier for if I had, we might have had much more time.

I see the ghost of my parents when I look at her sometimes, because my parents must have looked just the same as we do together. All I can do is hope that I can give Ginny much more of a forever than my parents got together.

I glance back one more time at their gravestone, and begin the walk towards her once again. I wonder if she's forgiven me, if she still even wants to be with me, or if she's just here to say goodbye or to torture me.

"Harry," She calls in her most beautiful, bright sounding voice, "I love you!"

I look at her with the whisper of a smile on my face. That was what I needed to hear, and it almost makes it all better. Almost. How can it be better when so many people never got to go home?

I walk over to her, and into her arms, and she wraps herself around me. I know she'll try to understand what I feel towards this war, and if anyone could it would be her, for she was touched by it too. I know that she will try for the rest of her life, and that she will almost understand on a primal level.

But I know that nobody ever will.

FINI

He said, Son,  
Have you see the world?  
Well, what would you say  
If I said that you could?  
Just carry this gun and youll even get paid.  
I said, That sounds pretty good.

Black leather boots  
Spit-shined so bright  
They cut off my hair but it looked alright  
We marched and we sang  
We all became friends  
As we learned how to fight

A hero of war  
Yeah thats what I'll be  
And when I come home  
Theyll be damn proud of me  
I'll carry this flag  
To the grave if I must  
Because its flag that I love  
And a flag that I trust

I kicked in the door  
I yelled my commands  
The children, they cried  
But I got my man  
We took him away  
A bag over his face  
From his family and his friends

They took off his clothes  
They pissed in his hands  
I told them to stop  
But then I joined in  
We beat him with guns  
And batons not just once  
But again and again

A hero of war  
Yeah thats what I'll be  
And when I come home  
Theyll be damn proud of me  
Ill carry this flag  
To the grave if I must  
Because its flag that I love  
And a flag that I trust

She walked through bullets and haze  
I asked her to stop  
I begged her to stay  
But she pressed on  
So I lifted my gun  
And I fired away

The shells jumped through the smoke  
And into the sand  
That the blood now had soaked  
She collapsed with a flag in her hand  
A flag white as snow

A hero of war  
Is that what they see  
Just medals and scars  
So damn proud of me  
And I brought home that flag  
Now it gathers dust  
But its a flag that I love  
Its the only flag I trust

He said, Son,  
have you seen the world?  
Well what would you say,  
if I said that you could?

Hero of War, Rise Against


End file.
